


Uncharted

by pendrecarc



Series: Imperial Survey [1]
Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Comment Fic, Gen, Post-Cryoburn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-02
Updated: 2013-07-02
Packaged: 2017-12-16 20:27:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/866271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pendrecarc/pseuds/pendrecarc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Emperor makes a request, and the Vicereine makes a counter-offer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Uncharted

**Author's Note:**

> Comment fic for kate_nepveu, who asked for 'Gregor and the numinous'.

“I have a rather odd question for you,” said the Emperor of Barrayar to the Vicereine of Sergyar.

She was dressed in heavy mourning; his right shoulder still sat a little lower than the other, as though it remembered the weight of the coffin. She crooked an eyebrow at him.

Gregor’s hands rested in his lap. He looked down at them in an oddly childlike show of reluctance. “You’ll tell me if you don’t want to talk about this? I’d rather have waited.”

“Talk about what, exactly?”

“A new dreadnought is nearing completion. The maiden voyage is scheduled for next month, and we need a name.”

“Ah,” she said. “I see.”

“The Council decided it by unanimous vote.”

“Did they really?”

“Begrudgingly, in a few cases, but none of them wanted to object aloud. Not under the circumstances.”

“No, I meant Miles.” The new Count Vorkosigan had been conspicuously absent from the first session called after his predecessor’s death. There had been gossip in public and whispers in the Council itself, but his family had elected to wait him out. No good had ever come from asking Miles to make up his mind on anyone’s schedule but his own.

“We had a quorum without him. The motion passed.”

She nodded. “It’s not the legacy I’d have chosen. Likely he wouldn’t have minded. Do you suppose they’ll put my name on a ship someday? Nothing so ostentatious as a a dreadnought. A courier, maybe.”

“I can put in a word if you like,” said Gregor, amused despite himself.

“They’ll name one after you, I suppose.”

“Very likely. I don’t think it can be avoided.”

“As in this case. Amazing, the speed with which the Council can move on matters of no real benefit to anyone. Are you asking for my permission? I don’t care one way or another what you do with your dreadnoughts, Gregor.”

“No,” he said, “I’m asking for your advice. The trouble is that none of them can agree on which title to use.”

“I see the problem,” she replied, considering. “He had so many. They weighed him down so.” She wasn’t looking at Gregor; if she had been, she might have seen him turn his face away. Instead she was thinking, her fingers tapping gently against her thinned lips. “The _Aral_ , I’d have said. But that was never enough, was it? The _Father-of-Miles-and-Mark-and-Husband-of-Cordelia_. The _Man-Who-Loved-His-Emperor-As-a-Son_. Though I suppose that won’t fit on your star charts.”

Gregor had steadied himself enough to meet her eyes. “No.”

“You people need much larger star charts,” Cordelia said decisively. “In the meantime, the _Regent Vorkosigan_ will do.”

“You think he’d like that?”

“Oh, yes. That title more than any other.”

“The _Regent Vorkosigan_ , then. There may be some objections, but I think it’ll go down easily enough if I can tell them the Vicereine recommended it.”

“Former Vicereine,” she said, and this time he did or could not hide the pain in his eyes.

His voice was steady, though. “Am I to take this as this your formal resignation?”

“Please do.”

“I don’t suppose there’s any chance you plan to stay here and take up the life of a dowager.”

“I can’t quite see myself in that role, no; nor on Barrayar for very much longer.”

“My fastest courier for Beta, than,” he said. “I can’t say I’m surprised. It’s yours, whenever you have need of it. Only—don’t let it be too soon.”

He was watching her for an answer, but her expression had softened and gone distant. When she spoke again she said, “I was thinking the other day, I can’t remember why, of the first time you went off planet. Do you remember?”

He was startled into a boyish smile. “Yes.”

“You begged and begged—very un-imperial of you, I was pleased—and eventually between us we convinced Aral and Simon to let you put on a suit and go outside.”

“You came with me,” he said.

“So did Simon, who does _not_ like spacewalks in the least and likes his Emperor performing them even less—I was half convinced he was going to resign after that episode—and a medic, and several technicians and half a dozen armsmen. But I made them keep well out of the way so you could enjoy it.”

“I did. I still remember what it felt like to be weightless the first time. Like floating in the lake at Vorkosigan Surleau, but more so. And you turned us so we were facing away from the ship, out into deep space so there was nothing manmade between us and the stars.”

“You remember that?” She was smiling, too. “I’m glad you do.”

“It was…I don’t think I have anything to compare it to.”

“There’s one advantage to religion, I suppose,” she said. “It teaches us to anticipate the divine. Not that we aren’t still caught off guard by it, but then that’s the whole point.”

“And all this time I thought you found God in the goodness of people.”

“That’s a very reductive way of summarizing it,” she said, “but I’ll forgive you. No, that came later. I first ‘found God’, as you put it, when I joined the Survey and took my first uncharted jump. There’s a moment when you realize your own insignificance and appreciate the vastness of everything else, and everyone responds a little differently to it.”

“How did you respond?”

“By deciding I no longer believed in the concept of insignificance. Everything else followed. What did you do?”

“Stared a while, if you remember. And then I thought about my father, what he’d have done with all that uncharted space, the mark he’d have left on it. Speaking of legacies.” He shook his head, then said suddenly, “Forgive me one more thing.”

“I probably will, but not until I know what for.”

“For being very un-imperial once again. For doing what I promised myself I wouldn’t and begging you to stay.”

She regarded him intently until he dropped his eyes from hers. She went on watching him, and then she said, “If I tell you what I want, may I have it?”

He looked up at once. “Even to half my kingdom, lady.”

She laughed. It sounded a little rusty. “An offer you can make because you know I’d never take you up on it. I have a better idea. I don’t want to take your territory—quite the opposite. Gregor, love, give me the Imperial Survey.”

There was a brief, thoughtful silence. A shadow passed over his face, but this time it was chagrin and not grief. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Because, son of my heart, you are entirely too accustomed to thinking of me as Countess Vorkosigan. No, don’t protest. It’s not just you. Everyone around us might remember me as the woman who walked into a staff meeting with Vordarian’s head in a shopping bag, but they forget about the three and a half decades that came before. I think it’s time to remind them.”

“You know what state it’s in,” he said, and though it was phrased as a warning his eyes had lit up eagerly. “It’s more military than scientific, and there haven’t been any major discoveries since Sergyar.”

“Yes, I know.”

“You’ll have a terrible time recruiting—there’s no prestige in it.”

“Prestige is overrated,” she said, “and I think you’ll find there’s plenty of interest. The new generation of Barrayarans is no less desperate for adventure than yours was, but they’re willing to look for it in different places. Don’t forget we have Komarr and Sergyar to draw from as well. I imagine I’ll be off-world more often than not, in fact; I was going to suggest relocating our headquarters to Komarr. It makes logistical sense, and it’ll give us some distance from the military, which you’ll agree can only be a good thing.”

“You do want this.”

“You can tell?”

“You said ‘us’, Cordelia.”

“I’ve given it some thought.”

“You never said anything.”

“No. I’m ready to talk about it now. Let me build you a new kind of legacy, Gregor—the biological you have already, and I know you’ve learned the value of the political and social. I want us to grasp at something larger. Let me find you a new planet where we’ll never need a military installation.”

“You never stop, do you?” His smile was fond, now, and wondering. “Someday you really must ask something of me without offering more in return.”

“I am,” she said. “Build me a new kind of fleet. Give me ships without guns; we’ve had enough of those. Give me an Emperor of Barrayar who’ll put his name on a scientific vessel when he’s gone.”

“You may not live to see it.”

“I hope I don’t,” she said. “Speaking of legacies.”


End file.
